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History professors Patrick Allitt and Joseph Crespino dive into the life of Strom Thurmond - the long-time senator from South Carolina - and what he means to the Republican party, and where he'd fit in today.

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Joseph Crespino, the author of the new biography "Strom Thurmond's America," will host an author talk on Tuesday, Jan. 29, at 6 p.m. in Emory University's Robert W. Woodruff Library.

Crespino, professor of history at Emory, says he wrote the book on the late South Carolina senator to provide a portrait of Thurmond's effect on modern conservative politics.

"Strom Thurmond is a well-known, controversial figure in Southern and national politics, and one I thought we didn't understand sufficiently," Crespino says. "We understood him as one of the last Jim Crow demagogues, but we also need to understand him as one of the first of the post-World War II Sunbelt conservatives. He didn't start off as one and gradually become the other — he was both at the same time.

"Understanding that paradox tells us a lot about Southern demagogues and Sunbelt conservatives, and a lot about Southern history and modern American political history," he adds.

Thurmond was adept at switching his positions, his views and even his parties (he began his political life as a Democrat and became a Republican in 1964) as it suited his career. He was a U.S. senator for nearly 48 years, and he became one of the first major figures in modern conservative politics, along with Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan. He won his first election to the South Carolina Senate in 1932, and is best remembered for his 24-hour filibuster in opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1957. After his death, it was revealed that Thurmond fathered a daughter with an African-American woman, who he never acknowledged publicly during his lifetime.

Crespino is also the author of "In Search of Another Country: Mississippi and the Conservative Counterrevolution" and the co-editor of "The Myth of Southern Exceptionalism."

The event, which is free and open to the public, will take place in the Jones Room on Woodruff Library level 3. The book will be available for sale, and a book signing and light refreshments will follow the presentation.